First take/Otter-Kasich

February 25, 2016

Cycle back to around, oh, 2001, and look at where C.L. “Butch” Otter and John Kasich were then – not just physically, but philosophically.

On his election to the U.S. House in 2000, Otter was described by the Almanac of American Politics as “not the social conservative his predecessor Helen Chenoweth was,” but beyond that very much in the conservative old: favoring lower taxes, reduced regulation, a pro-business outlook.

At right about that time, Kasich was becoming George W. Bush’s budget director, after a stretch as House budget committee chair. He and Otter had some similarities in personality, both exuding a certain sunniness and natural campaigning charm, and also ideological rigor of the same sort. Kasich had batted Bill Clinton with “cut spending first” demands in the 90s, ad became Budget chair “determined to reduce the size and scale of government.” He and Otter would have been kindred spirits in D.C. Both were solidly loyalist in the conservative movement of the 90s and beyond.

With that in mind, Otter’s endorsement this week of Kasich for president comes as no shock, but it does show how far the Republican Party has come. These days, Kasich is no longer on the front lines of the right; within the party, he’s more often considered a “moderate” or worse, the “least conservative” of the Republican presidential field even when that field consisted of 16 or so candidates. And Otter has been challenged from the right, seriously, something that (as he has said) would have been simply inconceivable not so many years before.

On another level, the endorsement may also show something else: Personal loyalty, since at this point Kasich seems to have no practical path to the Republican nomination. – rs